Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 79

79: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA)
Developer: Square (sigh) Enix
Year: 2003

 

I hated Final Fantasy Tactics when I first played it (but expect it to be very high on this list, in the end…) but FFTA turned the turn-based strat around for me, providing great gameplay, amusing and touching story lines, and an incredible job system. While it is far less deep in regards to customization and battle strategies, especially in comparison to some Strat games that are coming up on this list, the game provides a much easier learning curve, as well as a much more simple narrative that is far easier to follow than the original Tactics had to offer.

Ivalice is once again where this game is set, but unlike the first Tactics and/or FFXII (or Vagrant Story… shock!), the world is actually contained within a book-realm. Once inside, the game’s protagonist and his pals are placed within roles in the kingdom, most of them being simple warriors in the world, but one of them being prince of the nation. Of course, its revealed that this guy is the reason for all the problems in the world, because his imagination is greater than the others. You must become important enoguh in the world to not only meet up with your one time friend, to also be able to convince him to go home. And, since is family is so poor in real life, but royalty in this one, its going to be a tough time telling him to go back.

“Mewt, we have to go baaaaack!”

The gamepaly is standard turn-based action. You have a set of characters in your party that all have distinct jobs ranging from black mages to knights, time mages to bards, each with unique abilities and spells to use. They then take turns on grid-like battle areas against monsters, enemy parties, and the like. Combining elements works well, too, as sometimes you can create fantastic powers and effects. Summons show up, too, but are – of course – insanely difficult to utilize properly. The real thing, though, is that FFTA brought the “judge system” to the table, adding battle rules that both sides must follow (examples include: party can’t use swords, no healing spells, no black magic, etc.). Failure to comply gets people in jail or penalized in other fashions. Its an interesting addition to the game and – since one of your biggest enemies, Cid, is the head Judge – sometimes it is crucial to be ready for anything when you enter into battle.

The graphics are cool, too, keeping in the spirit of its predecessor – it has pixel characters and enemies strewn about 3D terrain. The classes for each character keep everyone apart and easy to tell from one another, and with a few different races for your people to be, it keeps everyone separate. It has a nice, simple mix with great color and good spell effects. Music is great, too, with battle music taking a key role in the entire game, altering itself from battle to battle.

All in all, FFTA is a great game and a wonderful car-trip or bathroom-break title. It provides numerous hours of fun and unlimited challenges and bonus missions to go on. The overall experience is simple but at time complex, and there are a good number of frustratingly difficult boss battles that will require ample skill to topple. While I did initially like this game better than the PSX tactics, it has fallen to the wayside. But I can’t resist giving props to a game that changed my mind in relation to an entire genre of video game titles.

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Added September 30, 2016
No “Classic Moment” on this one? Huh. I’ll fix that:
Classic Moment:
The pictured snowball fight, above, is awesome on two-fronts. One, it is a charming way of introducing the combat system with low stakes, and the second reason is that it is something to think back on later, when people are freaking dying. How innocent it all used to be.